sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (03/07/88)
As the administrator of a news system, I just got one of those messages from "uucp" telling me about which newsgroups were invalid and ought to be removed from my active file. One of the listed groups was comp.sys.mac.programmer. Now, I know that the group was at first created illegally, and that particular group was removed. However, to the best of my knowledge, the group was recreated later, after the full time period for voting had elapsed. What's up folks? Are the messages about changes in the active file that much out of date? Has something happened to change the current status of comp.sys.mac.programmer? And if not, should I trust those messages about changes in the active file in the future? Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: ihnp4!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************
clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris R. Lewis) (03/09/88)
In article <470@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes: >As the administrator of a news system, I just got one of those messages >from "uucp" telling me about which newsgroups were invalid and ought to >be removed from my active file. One of the listed groups was >comp.sys.mac.programmer. Now, I know that the group was at first created >illegally, and that particular group was removed. However, to the best >of my knowledge, the group was recreated later, after the full time >period for voting had elapsed. > >What's up folks? Are the messages about changes in the active file that >much out of date? Has something happened to change the current status >of comp.sys.mac.programmer? And if not, should I trust those messages >about changes in the active file in the future? We got four checkgroups messages: From: news@otter.UUCP (news daemon) Newsgroups: news.admin.ctl,control Subject: checkgroups Message-ID: <8960@otter.UUCP> Date: 6 Mar 88 15:03:21 GMT Control: checkgroups Organization: GenRad, Inc., Bolton, Mass. Lines: 321 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.edu Two from condor, two from otter. Hey, wait a minute! What's Spaf doing at GenRad? :-) Note that condor and otter are both GenRad sites, with the *same* SA. Well, my assumption is that the SA at GenRad was trying to run a checkgroups (possibly on an internal net of USENET-supporting machines) and figgered that it had to be posted to news.admin, and since that is moderated, he was going to have to fool the software with the Approved: line. AND, he gave it a big enough distribution (eg: none, but "news" top-level name) to escape their sites. Presumably, the escape was unintentional. Thus, it was not an "official" checkgroups. Besides, Spaf doesn't post real checkgroups anymore either - he makes one up, posts it, but in such a way that the SA had to snag it, rewrap slightly, THEN run it. Sigh. (I promise to get around to implementing a version of checkgroups that doesn't complain about inet groups one of these days!) The SA should have done the checkgroups logged in from root or news to newsgroup "control" (or any local group - we some times use "general"). Then the forgery would not have been necessary, nor would it have escaped to bug the rest of us. -- Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc, UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo, lsuc, yunexus}!spectrix!clewis Phone: (416)-474-1955